Tuesday: Your Goats!

Congrats to our Week 3 Whole Life Challenge Winners – Hayley Montroy and Jonathan Dekiewit! They have been taking on the WLC with their Full Effort! Each achieved perfect scores, including full bonus points, and won the tie breakers! They each receive 2 Bottles of Omega-3 Fish Oil from our Week 3 Sponsor – Original Nutritionals!

~And now, another awesome guest blog from Coach Dan!

Let’s go to the farm everyone! Today we’re going to talk about how you can use a goat to get better at Crossfit! Wait…what? What do goats have to do with improving your athletic ability? Sorry to disappoint you all, but I haven’t finally lost my mind.
The saying “Get Your Goat” supposedly originated from the early horse racing days, where goats were kept with nervous race horses to keep them calm before the race, and if you wanted to beat the competition you would “get their goat” causing their horse to become agitated and unable to race. In Crossfit, a goat is a movement you hate doing, suck at, or both. Probably a movement you’ve continually struggled with, and feel like you’ll never be good at. I suppose the correlation here is that if you keep your goats (aka the movements you struggle with) close by, then you won’t be nervous before your big race (aka your WOD) because you’ll be calm knowing that you have it under control.

One thing I’ve definitely learned is that eventually a time is going to come when you finally know enough of the CrossFit movements that you have your group of ones that you feel pretty comfortable with…and then there’s that ‘other’ group of movements. You know, the ones that when you look at the WOD on the website and cringe just a tiny bit. At first everything is so new and there is so much to learn that there seems to be an endless amount of progress to be made. As your consistent training helps you improve though, you will find that certain movements and efficiencies that you lack will hold you back and cause your progress to level out. How about stringing together multiple pull ups, maybe even butterfly pull ups? Double unders anyone? How are those hand stand push ups coming? I thought so…

Don’t be worried though! You can “get your goat” and it isn’t even that hard, it just takes some time and patience. It took me well over 6 months to get butterfly pull ups the first time, and I wasn’t really great at them for over a year. This of course was after I could just do any kind of pull up at all, which I couldn’t when I started Crossfit. Even I started with a band – a big ol’ green one. Learning double unders took me almost 9 months, and then I went through a long period of struggling with 2 a time, then 5 or 6 at a time before I had that breakthrough of 20 in a row.

In my opinion, there are two great ways to implement your goats into your training and break through those walls holding you back from the progress you’re looking for. The first one is spending some time before or after class, and just practicing the movements you are struggling with. Really break them down into their basic mechanics and see where you are having that disconnect, and then work on dialing in those weaknesses. High Voltage has a whole staff of awesome coaches, not to mention plenty of certified fire breathers, that are more than happy to take a look at what you’re doing and offer some good advice on how to improve. Personalized, targeted skill sessions with a coach work wonders too. When I was struggling with double unders, I decided that I would work on them for 30 minutes per day, 5 days a week, for one month. I’m not saying that you have to go to that level, but the fact is, by the end of that month I had my double unders down. It’s a matter of how bad you want it, and what you’re willing to put in to get there.

Once you’ve got some basic competency on your goats, then it’s time to start to do them during your WOD’s. Once you know that you can do at least a couple double unders or butterfly pullups in a row for example, from that point on, hold yourself accountable to do them in every WOD. Yes, your time may suffer in the short term and it may be very frustrating for awhile, but only by practicing in a stressful and tired situation are you really going to have those major mental break throughs. But we’re training for long term results, and sometimes you’ve got to pull back on the intensity, up the skill, and then eventually reap the benefits. One thing I know for sure is that you certainly aren’t going to get any better by pretending they don’t exist!

The fact of the matter is, no matter how you choose to incorporate your goat, you better get after it. Find an accountability buddy, pick your movements, and set a time at least twice a week. I watched my own goat partner Coach Logan get 3 PR’s in one week last week! Those didn’t come from neglecting his weaknesses. In the last month alone, I’ve seen Krystal go from being afraid to get inverted on the wall, to repping out multiple sets of legit hand stand push ups! It seems like overnight Maurice went from being wobbly on his hand stand kick-ups to the point where now he’s walking on his hands half way across the gym!

The one thing they all have in common is that I repeatedly saw them in the corner day after day, already exhausted from their WOD, but setting those extra couple of minutes aside to work some on movements they presently struggled with. Even more importantly, they stayed consistent – and just as hard as they worked physically at improving, they were also improved their mental fortitude. A little something I like to call putting in your “mental reps”….but that’s for my next blog. So get on your overalls, grab your straw hat, roll up your sleeves, get inspired, and get that goat!

Bright & Early – They’re Getting FIT and attacking their goats!! Our 6&7am crews bring it with their Full Effort before the sun comes up! Remember, you’re only as strong as your weakest link!

Level 1 CrossFit

Level One/Two CrossFit

All Levels CrossFit

Skill: Overhead Squat

Sets of 5 Reps

WOD: 3 Rounds

1 Minute Per Station

Rest 1 minute after all 4 stations are complete

Wall Ball

Kettlebell Swings

Lateral Hurdle Jumps

Slam Ball

A. Snatch Progressions

5 Sets, 3 Reps Per set

Hang Power Snatch

Review Overhead Squatting

WOD:

“Jeremy”

21-15-9

Overhead Squats

Burpees (W/Jump Over Barbell)

A. 3 Position Squat Snatch (high to low) x 4 sets

High Hang (above knee)

Low Hang (below knee)

Floor

All sets must be unbroken:

The focus is on finding the proper positions and keeping the bar close to the body at each rep.

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Burbank, CA 91502

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